They matched her lip dye, Eve noted. How—and why—did women think of that kind of detail?
“I’m so glad you got my purse back. It had all my stuff, pictures and ID and this new lip dye I just bought, and… God.” She rubbed her hands over her face. “Want to sit down?”
“For a minute. You’ve known Bobby and D.K. awhile.”
“Since I started working for them. Bobby, he’s just the sweetest thing.” She sat, brushed at the thighs of her pants. “I fell right off. He’s a little shy, you know, with women. D.K. was always teasing him.”
“Bobby mentioned that D.K. and Trudy didn’t get along.”
“Oh, well.” Zana’s color resurfaced, just a little. “Mostly D.K. just kept his distance. Kind of a personality clash, I guess. Trudy, she’d just say what she was thinking, right out. And sometimes, well, people got a little offended.”
“You didn’t?”
“She’s—she was—the mother of the man I love. And she raised him single-handed.” Her eyes went starry. “Raised such a good man. I didn’t mind her giving me advice. I’ve never been married before, after all, or kept a home. Anyway, Bobby knew just how to handle her.”
“Did he?”
“He’d just tell me to nod and go along, then do what I wanted.” Zana laughed, then covered her mouth with her hand as if to smother the sound. “That’s what he did, mostly, and there was hardly ever a cross word between them.”
“But there were some.”
“Little spats now and then, like families have. Eve—is it all right if I call you Eve?”
“Yeah, that’s fine.”
“Do you think we can go home soon?” Her lips trembled before she pressed them together. “I was so excited about coming here, seeing New York, it was all I could think about. Now I just want to go home.”
“At this point of the investigation, it’s more convenient if you and Bobby are here.”
“That’s what he said.” She sighed. “And he doesn’t want to go home for Christmas. Says he just doesn’t want to be there for it. I guess I can understand. It’s just…” Tears shimmered in her eyes, but didn’t fall. “It’s selfish.”
“What is?”
“It’s our first Christmas married. Now we’ll spend it in a hotel room. It is selfish.” She sniffed back the tears, shook her head. “I shouldn’t even be thinking about it with his mama…”
“It’s natural enough.”
Zana cast her guilty look toward the pocket doors. “Don’t tell him I said anything. Please. He’s got enough on his mind.”
She got to her feet when the doors opened. “Hi, honey. Look who’s here.”
“Eve. Thanks for coming. I was just talking to my partner.” He worked up a smile for his wife. “We closed the deal.”
She slapped her hands together, bounced on her toes. “The big house?”
“The big one. D.K. got the contract and deposit from the buyer this morning.”
“Oh, honey! That’s just wonderful. Congratulations.” She hurried around the sofa to give him a fierce hug. “You both worked so hard for that.”
“Big sale,” Bobby told Eve. “Hell, a white elephant we took on. We’d just about given up, when we got a nibble last week. My partner tied it up in a bow this morning.”
“Back in Texas.”
“Yeah. Took them through it three times over the weekend. They just wouldn’t commit. Wanted to go through it again this morning, so he walked them through it again, and they finally bit. It’s a big commission for us.”
And put the partner out of the running, Eve decided, unless he’d found a way to be two places at once. “Congratulations.”
“Mama would’ve been on the moon.”